Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Yeah, five straight. A far cry from their run just a couple of weeks ago. As it is, save for the final period of their game on Saturday afternoon against Philadelphia, they have definitely deviated from any game plan that remotely works against opposing teams. As a result, they are mired in 13th place while hotter teams close in on the final playoff spots.

What I have to wonder is... how long will it take for the boys to snap out of this funk? They've been playing as though they're unsure of themselves, as though they're afraid to do anything rash, but the result is they're giving up positioning, not playing physically enough, stalling on offense and more or less a disaster on defense.

If all this sounds harsh, then perhaps it is, but it's the truth. According to Doug Weight, the team has been talking it over and trying to resolve the issues on the ice, but talk can only go so far. It's time to execute- time to really turn on the jets and go back to the way it was before the game against Pittsburgh. Makes you wonder if this would have happened had Andy Sutton not gotten suspended.

Some say the team is too young and (still) not talented enough to sustain a winning run, and perhaps that's true. After all, like I've said before, it's a tight Eastern Conference, and there are teams here with talent and experience. The Isles have some of the former (raw, but existent), and not enough of the latter, to compete for very long. Still, we must have high hopes that somehow the Isles will go down fighting. If nothing else, I would like for this team at the end of the season to be able to say they have made some tremendous strides, and for the most part, I would have to say we've done that so far.

Let's see how much further we can go.

In Other News: The Rangers acquire Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust from the Calgary Flames in return for Ales Kotalik and Chris Higgins. So much for that... the Flames continued their firesale by shipping off Dion Phaneuf, Fredrik Sjostrom and Keith Aulie to Toronto for Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and Ian White... Toronto also received Jean-Sebastien Giguere from Anaheim for Jason Blake and Vesa Toskala. Giguere was appointed Toronto's starter for the rest of the season. We shall see how this pans out.